Subtlety
by Edwin Nigma
Summary: As solid friends and fake lovers, Max is confused that Alec is losing his flair for dramatics when it comes to keeping up pretenses. Soft Max/Alec fluff & friendship


**Just a fluff piece that I wrote a while ago. I love Alec dearly so I wanted to give a nod to his psychology as I understand it. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

The "Siege" was a lot less eventful than anyone in Terminal City of Seattle thought it would be. Yes, things were tense, but no one was quite willing to set off the spark. Max knew she should be grateful, but honestly a little activity might've been a convenient excuse when it came to dealing with her so-called "love life".

She and Logan were done. D.O.N.E.

It was one absent minded mistake that had blown the whole thing up in her face. The day the flag was raised over T.C., Logan had reached over and held her hand.

And she hadn't stopped him.

She hadn't stopped him from standing in between her and her supposed boyfriend/lover/whatever and holding her hand and now she cursed the momentary lapse. Logan was now convinced that any "entanglements" between her and Alec were without any solid base and that there was still hope for the cure fixing everything.

Max used to agree. She used to be so sure and so willing to jump onto that "curse the cure" bandwagon for all of her troubles, but now she wasn't so sure.

She'd noticed things, subtle at first, of how she and Logan acted. The previous trill of energy she used to get when he was in the room had faded into an anxious roil in her gut and a simmering guilt in her heart. Being too close now brought discomfort instead of solace, fear instead of peace.

Then there was, that… _other_ factor, the one she tried to ignore. Maybe it was simply because they'd been spending too much time apart, but something about how Logan spoke to her now felt a bit patronizing. The feeling of any conversations between Max and Logan was very different than between Max and Alec or Dix or Joshua. Max always felt somehow lesser and she didn't like it. She was probably just stressed and overreacting… hopefully…

She was relying a bit more on Alec to be the little snarky show off he usually was and win the award for "most flair and bawdy theatrics from a fake boyfriend" but it never really happened. If anything, Alec seemed more distant and calculating than ever before in their relationship. The most outwardly flirty they got was hold hands sometimes or wrap an arm around someone's waist or shoulders. While the level of boundary respect was appreciated - and almost surprising from Alec - Max was on the verge of demanding that he step up his game.

She was his fake girlfriend for crying out loud! Where was the commitment?

Either way, things had settled into a standoff with the outside, leading to successful supply runs and the occasional escapade for takeout from Pizza or The Teriyaki Terrace that Li'l Suki's father owned.

Max sighed at the delicious aroma from the plastic bags as she sauntered in to set down the encased chow mein, house fried rice, dumplings, and orange chicken. Looking up at her (reluctant) roommate, Max found her smile slipping at the grim expression on Alec's face.

She and Alec had been living together since transgenics had divvied up the housing options at the start of the siege in order to keep up the pretense of being a couple. With all of the extra time around each other, they'd found a comfortable balance and, in Max's case, a comfortable extra mattress to set up across from the other in their bedroom. Conversation was also a bit easier and cozy silence was even more so.

Alec's silence didn't seem comfortable at all. It was a tense, looming, ominous kind of silence that only just eased as he let out a slow breath. "Max… you good to talk right now?"

The other transgenic glanced at the food and then to her friend and nodded, plopping down on the couch across from her companion. "What's up?" She asked, half-wishing that he wouldn't tell her. She didn't know if she could handle any bad news today when she'd only just gotten happiness back in the form of extra fortune cookies.

"This is…" Alec began slowly. "You're gonna have to bear with me, okay?"

Max nodded.

"And this conversation never leaves the two of us, okay?" He reminded.

Max felt her eyebrows draw together in confusion but nodded once more.

Alec ran a hand through his recently trimmed hair and adjusted himself to tuck his bare feet underneath himself. "Okay." He gulped and ran a hand down his face.

Max braced herself more. "Alec" and "nervous" in the same sentence could only happen with the words "is never" somewhere included.

"I'm not entirely sure how to-..." He waved his hand vaguely in explanation. "You know, do this…"

The brunette studied him once more and opted to wait in silence. She'd gotten to know him better over the last few months, well enough to know how to get him to talk if he had something to say.

"I'm not a sociopath." He stated blandly.

The woman across from him could only blink. "Was I supposed to believe you were?" She asked carefully.

Alec shrugged. "I don't know. Some people think I am and I don't blame 'em so I was just making it clear."

"Who does?"

"Doesn't matter." Alec shook his head. "The point is, I'm not."

"Ooooookay…?" Puzzlement never left Max's face. "Was that what you needed to tell me?"

"No. Well, yes. It's part of it. I told you I don't-..." He almost seemed to have some kind of glitch to Max. Alec was a smooth-talker. He was Mr. Charm Extraordinaire. The times she'd ever seen him at a loss for words were so few and far between that she hardly remembered the occurrence. The times that she _did_ remember were serious times. Alec didn't give up his bravado-stoic-"always-alright" mask for anything. Not to mention when it happened she usually had to pry her way into the situation to understand why Alec was acting off. He didn't let others in when he was stressed or scared… until _now_ apparently.

"I know I've been lagging in the whole "boyfriend" department." He announced.

Ah, Max thought to herself, here we are.

"I know I am and I know you're getting frustrated by all of it and I'm sorry." His nimble fingers were picking at a frayed thread at the bottom of his sweatpants. To Alec, today was not a day for going out, Max realized. Today was a day bracing and rearranging words for this.

"Well, that's fine. How about we-"

"-Max… that's not all. This all ties together and I need you to understand it, okay?"

Where this was leading, Max couldn't tell, but it was important to Alec. It spoke a great deal about how far they'd come as friends that that reason was enough to Max to accept it. "Okay. I'm listening."

"Back at… _home_ , it got more harsh after '09. They didn't want any units to get too attached to each other and they didn't want any kind of exploitable weakness in their soldiers. Weaknesses like emotions that couldn't be controlled." Alec said. "There was… a lot of Psy-Ops involved, for the twins and anyone who could be characterized as reckless, unpredictable, rebellious, or overly curious."

Max tallied up each label and had a lead-feeling suspicion that she knew exactly where this was going, or at least who those traits fit perfectly.

"I don't even know how long I was there." Alec admitted quietly. "But I do know that everything was on lockdown. Everything. The end result was I-... I had-..." He clenched his hands tightly in front of Max like he was grabbing at some kind of elusive word.

The epiphany struck him and he motioned to her. "Think of a safe, or a lockbox." He waited until he could see her conjuring the image in her mind. The words seemed on the verge of pouring out of him. "It's all in there."

"...What is?"

"Every-" He grit his teeth, biting back the torrent. His once more clenched fists flicked out the inexpressible and Alec seemed to take some amount of hope at the comprehension appearing on Max's face.

"Every feeling they didn't want you to have." Max finished.

Alec nodded. "I-I'm not a sociopath…. Or maybe I am. I don't know. But it's not my fault and I don't _try_ to be."

"I know, I know." Max reassured him. "It's a tough habit to break out of."

A slight smile flickered across the home of the trademark smirk and Alec scratched the back of his head once more. "I know that you know. That's why I decided to try to explain." He shrugged a little sheepishly. "I trust you Max. I trust you more than anyone so don't be mad at me, okay?"

"Why would I be mad at you?"

He bit his lip and returned his gaze to the loose string that his feline DNA couldn't seem to ignore on principal. "I don't want to touch the box."

Max slowly raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I don't want to touch the box. Every time I do, something bad happens. I don't want to touch it, open it, tinker with it. I just can't." He confessed at last.

The meaning of the statement settled in the space between them.

"Alright. So why tell me this now?" Max asked.

"Because the way you want me to feel, or _pretend_ to feel, and the way you're waiting for me to _act_ …it's in the box."

Max gave a slightly bitter sigh. "And you can't touch the box."

"Uh huh."

"But, Alec, Manticore's gone. You're not going to get into trouble for having emotions again."

Alec was shaking his head before she even finished. "I knew you were gonna say that, but you're wrong."

"How do you know?"

"Cause you are." He answered.

Max folded her arms across her chest. "Alec. That's not an answer. How do you know that something bad's gonna happen again?"

"...Cause I tried a few months ago. I tried to see what would happen, what it would be like. It was just a little bit, I didn't think I'd lose it that fast." His usually boisterous voice was smaller than Max had ever heard.

"What happened?"

The other transgenic was shaking his head. "Something

happened and I can't fix it and if I try to touch the box again it'll get worse."

Max's curiosity piqued. "Did you feel something?"

He looked up at her with horrified eyes and nodded.

Max's mind flashed back with visions of Alec flirting with Asha, pouting when he failed to find his number in her notebook, Asha asleep on Alec's couch when Max stopped by.

"You got a crush." Max declared.

Alec paled. "H-How-?"

"Female intuition." She grinned. "You got a crush on a girl and you couldn't shake it."

Her eyes darted at the sight of motion and noticed Alec's hands had built up a slight tremor. Her grin dropped and she grabbed his hands in her own. "Alec, are you alright? You took tryptophan, right?"

He yanked his hands away like he'd been burned. "Yes. It's not that." He stuffed his hands into his pockets without further preamble.

Why would he be-? Oh. Max picked up the last piece of the puzzle. "And now you're scared that it'll end like the last time."

"'M not scared." Alec refuted but it lacked a certain edge.

"Alec, nothing is set in stone, you know. Anything can happen. You might end up happy."

A strangled laugh caught her by surprise. "Yeah, sure. 'Cause that's how my story goes." Stinging ice had replaced the warmth of his smile. "And of course there's no competition to deal with either. Competition that's not leaps and bounds ahead when it comes to being Mr. Perfect Hero who always does the right thing."

Max stared.

She'd never heard anything close to jealousy of Logan come from Alec before. There hadn't been any from the other side either, but it came in looks. Logan would glance over when Alec did any kind of astounding physical feat. How often had Alec been studying from the sidelines when Logan stole the show without Max noticing?

Asha's crush on Logan was a poorly kept secret at best and downright flagrant most of the time. Despite Logan's perpetual commitment to the search for the cure to the virus, Asha remained undeterred.

"Alec… I don't know what to say…" Max admitted.

"You don't have to say anything. And I don't want your pity either." He reminded her. "If you don't have anything to say you can just go but… Max, I'm sorry. Know that much at least, okay? I'm sorry for a lot and I understand that he's a better option than me. I mean, I can't even try talking about my own stupid _feelings_ without pulling out weird dumb metaphors. But I swear if you want me to shut them back in the stupid box I'll do it as long as you promise not to stay pissed at me cause I still need you, Max. Even if you're not remotely interested, I can't-"

"-Alec."

His mouth snapped shut. Max saw the telltale tick in his jaw of high stress as he winced like he was waiting for the axe to fall.

Max had lost him somewhere in that speech. Somewhere between the freely admitted insecurities and the bargaining, she'd missed something.

Her mind replayed the words back and forth but there was a factor that refused to step into the light. Why would Max care if Alec was in love with Asha? He didn't think she was some sort of crazy-jealous jilted fake-lover, did he? But then there was that other thing. And…

And…

A switch flipped in her brain moments before it had a meltdown.

Alec didn't love Asha.

Alec hadn't been talking about Asha.

Alec hadn't admitted jealousy of Logan because _Asha_ loved him.

Nope.

Alec had fallen for _**Max**_.

 _I always go for the ones I can't have._

Max wasn't sure how much time had passed in order for this revelation to take place. By the time she became of her surroundings, everything seemed deathly silent.

Alec's green eyes had a brighter intensity to them as he waited. Max studied him again with this new lens of clarity.

Apparently she was taking too long.

"Max… Can you say something? ...Please?"

She shook her head slowly in response.

Alec's breath shook, his eyes darting away, looking for some kind of escape route.

His skin felt almost clammy when Max reached out and grabbed his arm. He stiffened at the instant of contact. Max waited a second in case of another reaction of the running variety before leaning over to the table and grabbing the takeout bag with her free hand. Pulling it over, she made herself comfortable, nestled against a still petrified Alec.

She felt him inhale slowly and start to thaw from the panicked freeze. A pair of chopsticks wiggled in front of his nose and he cautiously plucked them from Max's grasp.

A box of orange chicken was placed in his hand.

It very nearly fell to the floor an instant later when Max lightly kissed him on the cheek.

They were nearly halfway through the boxes before Alec had relaxed entirely. Max glanced up at him from her cozy position tucked against him. "You okay?"

"Think I'm having a weird dream." He responded slowly.

"Good dream?"

He nodded.

"Well, that's good. It's probably gonna be one of those recurring ones." She warned.

"Okay."

The longer Alec processed Max's choice of action, the more time Max had to realize that she'd made the right choice.

Alec was a good man. He made her laugh, knew how to push all of her buttons and then step back when she needed to get out of a funk, comforted her when she was down, and she trusted him with her life and her secrets. He had somehow become her best friend without her noticing.

She couldn't ask for a better one.

"Hey, Alec, just a heads up, I'm going to make sure that box opens up."

Alec was quiet for a moment before leaning slightly against Max. "Okay."


End file.
